Holy shit? I finished another project?

Thanks for reading, friends. I started posting this fic while I was taking a leave of absence from work to recover from a nervous breakdown, and writing this was incredibly therapeutic. Your support and kind words mean the world to me.

I may come back at some point and add an epilogue, or maybe a very wee sequel, but for now I think this is a nice stopping place! Thank you again. I love you. Remember, you do not need to be able to imagine a future in order to build a good one. Just look after today and the future will follow in time.


Chapter 17
Take Up Your Spade - Sara Watkins

Roxanne whines when her alarm goes off in the morning, and Megamind groans and blinks his sleep-heavy eyes open to find he has his face shoved against her throat and Roxanne's face is in her pillow and their arms are everywhere and their legs are tangled. His back hurts, his hip hurts. He's too warm, almost feverishly so, and Roxanne is sort of sweaty and sticky and her skin feels weird against his.

It's wonderful. He wants to wake up this way forever.

She peels herself off him and takes a shower as Megamind dozes happily in her bed, gets dressed while he watches with his eyes slitted open and his breathing long and slow with sleeping.

He tips his face up for a kiss as she says goodbye, and Roxanne has to laugh as she hurries to get the elevator down so she can make it into work on time. Megamind definitely was not awake when he mumbled, "Loveyu. Marrimee?" but Roxanne definitely meant it when she kissed him and said, "Of course." And his joyful little trill as he snuggled back down into the pillow with the scent of her hair, his happy purr behind her as she left down the stairs, more than answered any lingering doubts she might otherwise have had. If he ever asks, she'll say yes.

And maybe it's foolish to be already thinking of the rest of their lives! Maybe it is! The thought has definitely occurred to her that she's fallen awfully quickly for her sweet alien. But what is she supposed to do? Not imagine nice things? Roxanne can't help but dream about the days to come, and from the way Megamind keeps asking so hopefully to hear about the future he can't imagine for himself yet...she's pretty sure he's in the same boat.

The fact that he can look for a future when his past is so full of pain is absolutely breathtaking. She's still reeling over last night's revelation and afraid to know what there was more, of course might mean.

But it is the past. The future is going to be so much brighter. Roxanne is sure of it. They'll make it brighter, build it strong and good.

They'll make it.


Two months after Megamind and Metro Man made their new arrangement known, the citizens of Metro City are beginning to realize something is up. Metro Man is working something like fifty hours a week, instead of one hundred and thirty hours. Megamind hasn't rolled out one single doomsday device since the announcement, and he is almost certainly romantically involved with Metro Man's ex-girlfriend.

There's a new hashtag, now. #MegaSelfie. Megamind is accustomed to the #MegaMecha tag that used to accompany news of his battles, but this is a new one. He's not sure how he feels about it. He is slowly getting used to the pictures, though. Two people have attempted to stab him, but his armor held and did its job and Megamind refuses to be cowed. He continues to smile for pictures when asked, and KMCP spins this into a narrative of—spirit or bravery or something embarrassing like that, he isn't sure. He points the armor out to Roxanne but she says that isn't the point.

So far, the whole not-being-evil thing has been shockingly easy for Megamind to manage. Conceptualizing it is still difficult—his brain sometimes feels like several wet cats fighting in a sack—but once Roxanne helped him get started, the doing of non-evil things was not hard at all. Just…put down the spanner and the power drill and go sit in the sun somewhere and breathe. Text his girlfriend. Visit his niece. Research problems that need to be fixed. Find the sources of those problems. Brainstorm how to fix them. Help Wayne figure out how to build a plan and structure for when he assumes control of Scott Enterprises.

And try to keep from thinking about weaponry.

Despite his initial concerns, this does start to get easier. Roxanne helps him to start designing and building more new things in spite of the thoughts that plague him. He keeps busy, keeps a steady stream of small projects going while he thinks about the bigger ones, allows himself to sit and do quiet things for himself, just because, and…it gets easier. It does get easier. Slowly.

If he has nothing else to do, he reviews brainbot footage. This also helps. A surprising percentage of the host volunteered for city defense and community service duties when Megamind put out the call, and they seem to be getting the hang of it pretty quickly. A few of the younger bots still have trouble remembering not to bite, but their older counterparts are keeping an eye on them. And there was some initial trouble with unsavory types trying to coerce brainbots into working with them, or entice brainbots over to try and catch them, or—one time—use a group of brainbots for target practice. But Megamind's brainbots are Megamind's brainbots, and they are more than capable of defending themselves.

"What did you expect?" Megamind says, when approached and asked about this on the street one afternoon. "I think I'd try to bite your leg off, too, if someone was trying to throw a net over me."

"They aren't even alive," says the man with the microphone, and Megamind blinks and then sneers at him.

"That doesn't mean they can't think," he says. "That doesn't mean they don't deserve respect. Honestly! Who raised you?"

That particular exchange doesn't end well. Megamind does not punch the man, which he feels shows an admirable amount of restraint on his part, but public responses are mixed. Apparently, calling someone a 'two-bit, ignorant hack who couldn't find his own ass with both hands and a map' on camera is not widely regarded as 'restraint.'

Whatever.

But in general, the brainbots seem to be doing very well in their new roles as community helpers, and the citizens of Metro are adapting quickly to their presence around town. The overall response has been incredibly positive. Megamind has some plans for how to tackle the underlying issue behind the outpouring of support—the heavier roles the brainbots are handling should be jobs given to humans, funded by taxes. Most of these issues should really be covered by properly-funded social safety nets; the fact that it fell to a (soon-to-be-ex) supervillain to fill in that gap is appalling. A scathing indictment of the local budget at the absolute least, among other things.

People are beginning to wave to Megamind when they see him. Usually from a distance, and he does still get people who cross the street when they realize he's walking towards them—but it's better than running and screaming, and it's better than attacking and throwing things, and Megamind figures it's a good start. He begins to breathe a little easier.

Can it really be this easy, he wonders.


It hits him at the strangest time.

He's in the park with Roxanne again, with little Derya in her stroller. They've just finished eating the ice cream they bought from a food truck a few minutes ago, and Megamind is cleaning the sticky from Derya's little hands and round cheeks. She accepts the wet wipes with all the fussy grace of a baby who was having fun a minute ago and has just been interrupted for the sake of such abstract concepts as cleanliness.

"Yes, yes," Megamind says, touching her face with his fingertips as he wipes at her mouth, "I know, it's no fun. You got it everywhere, mi vida, and now you must accept the consequences."

The baby makes a disgruntled noise and spits out the nook that Megamind pops into her mouth, then makes grab hands at his customary sidearm. He hesitates, then finally sighs and drops back into a crouch and draws his weapon, quickly disassembles it so he can pull out the BINKY inside and wipe it down before giving it to the baby.

"You don't have to do that," Roxanne says as Derya crows and crams the little glowing thing into her mouth, bites on it happily. Megamind reassembles his darkened gun and stows it in its holster.

"It's fine," he says. "I can reassemble it in four point three seconds. It'll be fine."

Derya smiles at him around the glowing BINKY, and Megamind smiles back and runs the tip of his finger down and taps the end of her little nose, making her giggle. And—

He blinks.

Oh, he thinks, pausing. Huh.

"You okay?"

He swallows and looks up from where he's still crouched in front of the stroller. "Yes. Yes, I just thought—oh, I—it's not just that I don't want to die," he says, staring up into Roxanne's eyes with wonder in his face. "It's—it's not just not dying; it's—I want to live."

She blinks, then reaches down and pets her hand over his head. Takes his hand to pull him groaning to his feet. "I'm so glad," she says, squeezing his fingers and smiling into his face. Megamind smiles back, crinkling the corners of his eyes.


It isn't without hardships. Most of these come in the form of lawsuits, which is expected. Wayne's team of lawyers steps up to bat and Megamind insists on fair settlements whenever possible. Several of these lawsuits are dropped shortly after the lawyers explain exactly how much Megamind has quietly been doing to compensate already for the thing he's being sued over. He isn't happy about them finding out, but Wayne insists it's for the best.

Megamind finds it shockingly simple to follow Roxanne's suggestion and leverage Metro Man's obviously impending retirement into a full pardon. He has some trouble swinging 'unconditional' into the mix, but he wasn't really expecting to succeed, there. It's enough of a relief to know the law won't be coming for him once he no longer has the protections of section 170.

(The conditions are a relief, partly. Megamind built his whole adult life around the artificial purpose of destroying Metro Man and taking over the city; the requirement that he step up to defend the city he spent more than a decade terrorizing is simply another purpose for him to follow. And the brainbots have it well in hand, leaving Megamind free to organize various patents and plans. So it's mostly a formality.)

(Mostly, though, they're a concern. Conditions can be modified, added to. Megamind does harbor some significant reservations about that. He would be handling city defense anyway; this blatant attempt to control his activities makes him nervous.)


The biggest obstacle winds up being Megamind, himself. He tries to act calm but he is somewhat jumpy about formally announcing his retirement as supervillain. When he and Wayne and Minion finally agree on a date, everything seems very real, suddenly, in a way it mostly didn't before.

"I can't do this," he tells Roxanne, desperate, a few nights before the press conference where he and Metro Man will officially step down. "I can't—I can't do this. Roxanne I don't, I don't know how to do this."

They've just returned to Evil Lair from Wayne's hideout and they're sitting on Megamind's sofa. He has his elbows on his knees and his forehead in his hands and Roxanne and Minion on either side of him.

"You've been doing just fine so far," she tells him, rubbing a soothing hand up and down his spine as Minion nods encouragement.

"But—I'm still fighting with the mayor's office about the specific conditions of the pardon, I'm—just barely able to walk on the street alone outside without panicking when I get home—I can't," he says. He shakes his head wildly and looks at her with one green eye and the other glinting silver off its aperture. "It's—this isn't going to work! I'm going to get up in front of that podium tomorrow and—and either I'm going to open fire or they're going to arrest me! and if I'm not protected as a supervillain, there's nothing to, nothing to keep them from—they'll, they'll—I'm—never going to see daylight again! I'm—"

"Sir," Minion says.

"—but! But I can just keep doing what I've been doing! I can go back, I still have Jawbreaker and once I iron out the kinks—"

"No," Roxanne says flatly. "Absolutely not. One hundred times no."

"Sir, you will be fine," says Minion, on his other side. "The pardon will work out, you'll see!"

"How do you know?" Megamind demands, turning to glare up at him with desperation in his face. "Minion, you don't know."

"I do too," Minion says, serene. "I outsourced it to a higher power."

Megamind stops, then wrinkles his forehead and stares at him. "Wh—is this your way of telling me you've found Jesus? Are you going to the mosque with Salim? I know you didn't go to a synagogue yesterday."

Minion blinks, then gives a bubbly, fishy snort. "What? No, I told the hero to take care of it. He was whining at me again about feeling bad about all this, so I suggested some ways he could make it up to you."

Megamind groans. "He doesn't have to feel bad," he begins, but Minion cuts him off.

"He mutilated your arm so badly we had to amputate it," he says flatly. "I think he can stand to feel a little bad about that."

Megamind swallows. He doesn't reply, but he does take Roxanne's hand and pull her arm over his shoulders. She smiles and squeezes him, then cups his jaw and gently turns his head so he looks at her. He doesn't even pretend to resist, just follows where she guides him.

"Don't talk yourself out of it," she tells him, her arm around his thin back, his sharp chin in her hand. "Your discomfort matters."

"That's my line," he mumbles, flushing, and she kisses him gently.

"You're not alone," she says, when she pulls away. "It's okay to be scared, but you aren't alone. You have Minion. You have me and Rose and Salim. You have Wayne. We can do it. Just get through today, and tomorrow we'll tackle tomorrow. Okay?"

He nods, takes a deep breath. "Okay."


"It's so much easier, having you with us," Minion tells her later, very quietly. He's sorting laundry after declining Roxanne's offer to help; she's sitting on the dryer and keeping him company. "So much easier. He listens to you."

"He listens to you, too," Roxanne says, because he does. But Minion shakes his head.

"Not the same way. He listens to me because he has to, because I'm right and he knows I'm right. But he wants to listen to you." He sends her a tired smile. "And you know how to tell him good things. I'm...a little too jaded to believe it when I try. He knows that, too."

Roxanne smiles a little. "Jaded or anxious?"

Minion shrugs. "It comes to the same thing in the end, I think. Here, you can help me with this sheet."

She sits up and takes the corners Minion passes her, and the two of them make quick work of folding the faded black fabric, soft with age and washings.

"And the fitted one," Minion says.

Roxanne doesn't groan at this, but she does say, "You fold the fitted ones? God, I just roll them into a ball. They're..."

She stops, blinking down at the turned corners. The only elastic present in this sheet are strips right at the corners where they tuck under the bed. The edges of the sheet are all straight and neatly hemmed, if somewhat worn.

"Like this," Minion says, showing her how to use her hands to nest the corners together and then pinch and flip to make an even rectangle. "And then hold it taut and fold...and fold again. Thank you, these are always easier with two people."

Roxanne blinks at the folded square he's just put on the stack of linens for the brainbots to put away. "Minion, that's genius," she says. "It's so neat! Did you make that yourself?"

He smiles, nodding. "Oh, yes. Sir can't handle certain fabrics if he's been swimming at all recently, they're terribly itchy for him, so I just go ahead and make sure everything is shipshape. It wasn't really a concern while he was wearing that watch, of course, but...well. I've kept up the habit. And even good storebought sheets are irritating for me when it comes to the fitted ones, so..." He shrugs again. "Much better sense for me to just fix the design. Oh! Speaking of which!" He straightens suddenly, brightening. Literally, glowing brighter as his expression goes genuinely sunny. "I have something for you!"

"You...?"

"Wait here! I'll be right back!"

And Minion bustles off, sharp metal footsteps fading out as he hurries away.

Mystified, Roxanne waits. She isn't bored, she has plenty to look at and think about. Minion's laundry space, like his little hydroponic herb garden near the sofa where Megamind sometimes sleeps, is simply a sectioned-off part of Main Storage. It's somewhat exposed, comparatively, but that means Minion has room to spread out a bit and hang clothes to dry on an array of lines and poles.

Roxanne looks up at the lair's shadowy ceiling, smiling a little bit at its collection of various derelict atom bomb casings with teeth cut out of them, living brainbots zipping to and fro and hither and yon around and between them. For years, she had thought the brainbots moved at random, or according to distinct protocols. That they did as they wanted or thought they should. But now that she's spending more time with them, around them, she's beginning to be able to see patterns to their movements and behaviors. Certain makes—"runs," as Megamind says—seem to gravitate towards certain types of tasks. The most obvious are, of course, the amphibious bots that maintain Evil Lair's dual reactor power systems and external lakeside architecture. And the reef pool. Less obvious are the bots Megamind refers to with fondness as his dustbusters: they keep the lair's non-living spaces clear of dirt and dust that could gum up the building's ventilation and air cooling systems or hurt other bots and machines before their neuromorphic and biomechanical pieces are sealed. Dustbuster bots are from multiple runs, but their joints are reinforced with rubber and latex and caulk to make sure they're protected.

Some bots have heftier thrusters, allowing them to more easily lift and carry. Some have built-in welding arrays. Some are fast. A crew of darters tends to keep close to Megamind in case a brainstorm hits and he needs a spontaneous idea cloud set up.

Roxanne has only seen this happen once, but she can't wait to see it again. Megamind had been in an odd mood all day and Roxanne had suggested they go swimming. They were walking past the control room for the muon reactor when Roxanne had said something about Pando, the trembling giant aspen...and Megamind snapped abruptly upright and then spun away from her, reaching for the pens two brainbots were already swooping down to hand him as two more came to hover close with boards to support the scraps of paper the rest of the crew were spiraling in with.

He had turned and circled, pacing with his vision distant and his eyes wide, muttering and trilling under his breath, scribbling notes on colored squares and rectangles and torn scraps of paper as other brainbots hung chains and strings from the ceiling around him. They whisked the notes away as quickly has he wrote them, clipping the notes to lines at different heights and angles. There were no pauses: each time Megamind turned, a darter was ready to meet him. The effect from Roxanne's perspective was that Megamind all but disappeared into a whirlwind of very fast brainbots spiraling upwards to clip plans and notes in a rapidly-growing three-dimensional collage over his head as he paced around and moved his hands through the barking cloud.

She had just enough time to realize the colors and shapes of paper were coming in predictable sequences when Megamind's urgent expression changed to one of intense focus. He whirled around and jumped, then simply ran up into the air as if he was on solid ground, with brainbots coming to meet his feet as he sprinted upwards to circle and study the expanding cloud. And his sure footing wasn't because the brainbots already knew where he was going—Roxanne watched him dodge and think better of where he wanted to go more than once. His darters caught him every time he jumped in an unexpected direction. They were wholly oriented on his movements, meeting his steps and meeting his hands with more papers and supporting boards. Megamind hissed and twitterclicked at them and scanned the cloud with his eyes from as many angles as possible as he rushed through the air around the perimeter of the cloud, and his bots caught him at every turn.

Finally he jumped clear. He hit the floor in a somersault, rolling to his feet and backing away to get some distance with his hands out still, brainbots still following, circling him as he stared up at the swinging lines of plans with huge excited eyes and a breathless smile, his chest heaving.

He kept his eyes on the cloud and his hands still scribbling the occasional note as he moved sideways back to Roxanne, who was staring at him. She hadn't seen Megamind's face light up like that in...a lot longer than she had even realized. He was panting and limping a little, but his shoulders had relaxed and his eyes were bright with interest, the lines of his throat and wrists were soft when he finally nodded and dropped his hands. The circling brainbots lifted, dispersed.

His cloud of notes twisted and turned in the breeze of the lair's ventilation systems above them as Roxanne shook herself and swallowed, summoned words. "What...was that?"

"Hmm? Oh! It's! A building!" He looked wildly excited about this. "A museum, specifically. The history of metavigilante activities in Metroooo City! Heroes and villains through the ages! And it will pioneer the first of the solar trees I've been thinking of, it'll be the scaffold! The trunk, the heartwood! Look, look at this—over here, follow! I'll show you! Oh—" He stopped suddenly and blinked at her. "But you wanted to swim?"

"Are you kidding? We can swim later, I want to know what a solar tree is!" And I want to see you ride this wave of inspiration into shore. And Megamind's smile blazed at her as he grabbed her hand and tugged her to follow him to one of the chalkboards the brainbots were wheeling over.

They'd had a nice time. Watching him plan when he was actually inspired was incredible. He just lit up, bouncing around and periodically shaking his hands out as he tried to write fast enough to keep up with his thoughts. Roxanne had sat with him afterwards on the steps of the reef pool, and taken his organic hand in both of hers and rubbed the heel of it with her thumbs so it wouldn't get too stiff.

She smiles up at the brainbots, remembering, then looks around at the sound of Minion's approaching footsteps.

"Here!" he exclaims, bustling in from between a pair of derelict lightning sheep. He's carrying a large basket and a small stool. "I had an idea the other day that just wouldn't leave me alone. I think I've got the measurements right but I want to make sure before I finish the underlining, do you mind?"

"What?" Roxanne laughs as she hops down from the washing machine and steps onto the stool. "Minion, what did you do?"

"What I do best," he says happily. "I found a pattern and fixed it. Now hold still..."


The press conference is at one PM.

Metro Man drifts a few inches off the ground, as he always does. Megamind stands stiffly beside him, his back straight. Minion is on his other side, out under the sky as he so rarely is. He's not happy about it, but he agreed: this is something he and Megamind need do together.

Roxanne is in the crowd as support, in the dress Minion made for her. It's sky-blue and made of the same stuff as Megamind's capes, and it's fluttery and dainty, it moves like bias-cut silk and breathes like linen and she is in love with it.

"As many of you have noticed," Metro Man says, "Megamind and I have been seriously scaling back our activities, recently. And, as many of you have speculated might be in the works, today we are announcing our mutual retirement."

This is pretty much expected, but a murmur runs through the crowd. Someone yells, "You can't just abandon us!"

Wayne takes a deep breath. "Look," he says, and ohhh it isn't going to be pretty if Wayne engages with his critics. He does his best, but he has no idea how to handle criticism without locking up or caving. Roxanne tenses.

But she needn't have worried. "He can, in fact," Megamind says loudly. He waves a hand at Wayne, a sort of take it easy, I'll handle this gesture. "But he isn't. He's turning you over to me. You've noticed the brainbots filling in for Metro Man when he's off the clock; we're rolling out that functionality twenty-four seven, going forward." He takes a deep breath. "My hope," he says, as scores upon scores of eerily silent brainbots rise like a shimmering wave behind City Hall, "is that you, the…kind and generous citizens of Metrocity…will be kind enough and generous enough to leave us alone."

He turns off his watch. Another shocked murmur ripples out over the plaza. Roxanne bites her lips together and hugs her elbows, feeling eyes turn to her as well. This is the part none of them were sure of, public-response-wise.

"Because if we continue," Megamind continues, voice steady, "one of these days, one of us isn't going to walk away from a battle. And you think you know which one of us that will be," he adds, "but you really, really don't. I don't want to kill you," he says, glancing up at his counterpart, "but I'm…tired. And I don't want to die."

"I'd prefer not to die, either," Wayne agrees. "There's a lot of weird cheeses out there I haven't tried, yet. And you've been sitting on a surefire way to put me down for…what, four years, now?"

"Longer than that," Megamind says dryly. He turns his head so the metal plate at his temple catches the light, knowing the cameras will have zoomed in on his face at this point. "But, yes. And I don't know how much longer I can believably drag this out without fully destroying you. So, our hope," he says addressing the crowd again, "is to set a precedent, here, today. Offer a way out to other people like us, who might be looking for one."

"And we have time for a few questions," Wayne says, as usual, and the press down front surges forward.

"Metro Man, are you concerned about the suicide rate of ex-heroes?" asks a blonde woman, holding a notepad at the ready. "Some might say you need us as much as we need you; what are your thoughts?"

Wayne takes a deep breath. "A lot of those heroes were forced out of the business in some way or another," he says. "I'm doing this by choice, and I'm pretty certain about it. It's not gonna be easy but I'm hoping doing this on my terms makes a difference. But I've also got, uh, a really good therapist. I'm learning to set boundaries. And identify, uh, manipulative codependent nonsense like that line about me needing you. And I've got a pretty solid support system, too. Friends," he says, glancing down at Megamind, "in unexpected places."

She turns to Megamind and opens her mouth, but he cuts her off. "I'm a survivor, I think that's obvious," he says flatly. "I've lost an eye, an arm, a few vertebrae. Half a lung. Most of my secondary respiratory system on my left side. If I wasn't semi-cartilaginous I would definitely be dead, and I didn't go to the trouble and pain of rebuilding all that just to off myself because of some midlife crisis; thanks, Nancy."

"And, Metro Man," says a man in a garish bow tie, when Wayne points to him, "could you address the allegations that your ex-girlfriend of seven years is having an affair with your arch-nemesis."

Wayne blinks a few times. "An affair!" he exclaims, mock-shocked. "Wow, and here I thought it was only an affair if we were like…married! Yeah, they're cute together, got a great thing going. I'm happy for them, truly."

"Building on John's question," says yet another reporter, "Megamind, to the possibility of Stockholm Syndrome being a factor in this relationship, you would say...?"

He snorts. "I would say if you think Roxanne isn't willing and able to serve me my ass on a plate when I get too full of myself, you haven't been watching the news. Yes, you in the back."

"What's next? You've been pardoned, you're outsourcing city defense to your drone army. What's your five-year plan?"

Megamind grins. "Affordable prosthetics," he says. "And other assistive devices. And then I'm thinking global warming might be a fun challenge to tackle."

"And how do you plan to make that work?"

"That would be telling," he says with a wink. "I've still got a few tricks up my leather sleeve. Nancy, you have something else?" She's been all but bouncing, and Megamind is not above playing favorites.

"Thank you," she says, and—then she pauses as a man in a suit ducks in and slips her a piece of paper. He murmurs something, ducks away. She nods. "Yes, just one more thing," she says, and glances down at the paper—

—and freezes with her mouth already open to ask.

Megamind cocks his head. "Yes?"

"Ahh," she says, glancing from the paper up to his face and back down again. "Yes. Um." She hesitates, stammers for a moment. "I don't think this is—"

"Oh, just ask it," he sighs. "We both know it will be all kinds of drama and speculation if you don't."

She swallows. "Now that you're so newly approachable," she says, her face pale and unsmiling, "do you have—plans for—how would you address a potential retrieval attempt by the—um, the—research team that—examined you, as a child?"

Megamind's face goes absolutely blank and Roxanne's blood runs cold.

"Examined," Megamind says, soft and dangerous. "Is that what they're calling it."

Nancy shakes her head very slightly. Swallows. Megamind grits his teeth, inhales slowly through his nose.

("Smoke bombs fully loaded in the perimeter cannons; will fire when ready, Sir," Minion says quietly.)

("You're okay," Wayne murmurs. "Say whatever you gotta, we're right behind you.")

"Hmmm," Megamind says. "Yes. Well. Good, I'm—glad you asked that." He raises his voice. "I'll take this opportunity," he says, "to preemptively remind…interested parties that I know exactly who they are and that I keep extremely close tabs on them and their loved ones in, say, Ashland, Virginia between Henry Clay Elementary School and the Trackside Bar, and in Baynard Village in Wilmington, Delaware. And just off the Capitol Beltway, north of Lake Accotink. As a few random, nonspecific examples. And I would preemptively remind them," he continues, "that I did not become a supervillain by issuing bluffs and empty threats. If they want to attempt to retrieve me, they are of course welcome to try, but they will not have much left to go home to at the end of the day. I'm stepping down, not rolling over." He pauses, a muscle twitching in his jaw. "And I'll be needing your source on that question," he says softly. Nancy nods. Roxanne is going to need to get in touch with her very soon.

"Aaaand that about wraps us up for today, I think," Wayne says loudly, and Megamind's shoulders visibly slump. "Hey, thank you all for coming out. We'll be seeing you around, Metro City!"


"I'm not going out for dinner," Megamind says flatly, as soon as they get out of the way of the crowd. That had been the original plan, dinner to commemorate the occasion, but— "We can celebrate another night. I need to get back to Evil Lair."

Wayne nods. "Absolutely, totally," he says. "Yeah, that last question was…oof. You okay? Need to talk?"

"Not to you. I just—I need—" He fidgets, jumpy, his gaze darting too quickly around the area they've claimed backstage.

"Okay, listen to me," Wayne says, landing with a soft thud that makes Megamind flinch. He drops into a crouch regardless and carefully grips the smaller alien by the upper arms. "If anyone," he says, "comes and takes you away, if you disappear, I will find you. No matter where you are. And I will get you the hell out of whatever the hell kind of bunker they've got you in. I promise. I swear to you."

Megamind nods, swallows, breathes.

"Megamind!" Roxanne is all but running across the pavement to them, slipping through the crowd with practiced grace and the occasional well-placed elbow. She doesn't slow down, taking the steps up to the stage two at a time; Wayne lets go of Megamind with one hand and turns him with the other. Roxanne runs full tilt into her boyfriend and wraps him in the tightest hug she can. "Megamind, oh my god, are you okay?"

He puts his arms around her and huddles close, trying to think of words.

Roxanne doesn't relax her arms even a little bit. "Are you okay?" she asks again after a moment, hearing the note of desperation in her own voice.

Megamind stirs.

"They. put. a bomb inside me. last time," he mumbles into her shoulder. His hands are wrapped into fists against her back. "Leverage. To control me, later. I had to rip it out myself. My uncles helped. If—and it wasn't rigged to go off if I touched it because—they, they didn't realize I knew about it. What it was. And, and—where. Where it was. They didn't realize I could—hear them. Talking."

Roxanne feels as though the world has been yanked from under her feet. Over Megamind's shoulder, she catches Wayne's eye; his mouth is hanging open and his face is pale and shocked.

"Holy fuck," he says, recovering. "So! Different idea! What if my parents adopt you and Minion? As, as a formality. Get you protected that way? Just to cover all your bases?"

Megamind looks up, eyes still frighteningly blank, and turns. "Do you think they would?"

"If I tell them to. Yes, definitely." He straightens and puts a hand on Megamind's back, over Roxanne's arms. "Is that something you want?"

Is it...

Megamind heaves a breath in and tries to steady himself. He's okay. He's. Okay. Roxanne is here and Wayne is his friend now and he's okay.

"Um," he says, blinking and frowning as the world returns a little. "Maybe. Let me…think. And talk to Minion."

Wayne nods. "Absolutely. You just say the word, okay? No pressure either way."

Megamind nods back and then turns away, presses his face to Roxanne's neck again. Feels her arms lock tight around his body, her pulse against his high cheekbone. And he feels…

Not safe, never safe. But he feels loved. And held. Protected.

"Thank you," he adds, belatedly.

"Yeah, of course!" Wayne exclaims. "Oh, totally. Here, lemme give you three a lift back to Evil Lair? Yeah? Minion, hey, come back—Minion! Hey!" He drops his voice and tells Megamind and Roxanne, "Hold on a sec," and Megamind feels the air move like water as he flits away.

Roxanne strokes his back with trembling hands. "You going to be okay?" she asks quietly. "Are you holding down a panic attack, or…?"

Megamind makes a quiet noise and lifts his head. "I'm all right," he says. "I am. I'm…not actually panicking, I think." He sounds mildly surprised about this, but his eye is gleaming as he looks at Roxanne. "I'm with you," he says, scarred mouth tugging in a tense but genuine smile. "Apparently that's enough. For now."

Roxanne blinks once, then quickly kisses him before she can burst into tears at the realization that apparently her just being there is enough to keep this man from losing his shit after what sounded like an intentional attempt to make him open fire in panicked self-defense on a crowd of assembled citizens.

There's a thump like a small thunderclap as Wayne materializes at Megamind's side. "Okay! Got Minion and the car back to the lair. Aaand three-two-one hup!" And the next thing Megamind knows, he's zipping through the air at unholy speed back to his home and true safety.

Wayne holds both him and Roxanne against his body the same way: their hips in the crooks of his elbows, his hands wrapped over their legs. Megamind looks at Roxanne across the expanse of Wayne's broad chest, the gold of his tie and his cream-colored suit. She smiles at him with tears in her eyes and the wind in her hair. Megamind reaches forward and takes her hand with the air flying past swirling around his skin, and exhales. And he smiles back, hardly feeling how it pulls at his scars.


Instead of going to a restaurant, he and Roxanne go to dinner at Rose and Salim's that night. Roxanne offers again and again to stay in, tells Megamind please not to push himself if he's tired or scared, but he just smiles a tired smile and says, "I want to. I do. Want to see...friends. Your family."

Roxanne squeezes his hand. "Yours, too."

Oh. That's. So very wonderful to hear. But he just nods; he's too rattled to put very many words together. Still, he really does want to see everyone. He needs to. He can't even say why.

And Minion agrees to come, too, which Megamind is thrilled about—Minion still doesn't leave Evil Lair, much. Not wearing his own face.

(The fact that Minion is so shy and anxious around other people is a fact that still amazes Roxanne; she mentions this again to Megamind as they're getting dressed to leave.)

("He's always seemed so gregarious to me," she exclaims. "He's so personable.")

("Well, he knows you," Megamind says, holding still while Roxanne helps tug his undersuit into place over the silicone of his prosthetic arm. He's used to doing all this himself, of course, but it really is nice to have someone else to help when he's one-handed or grappling to get the polyethylfullerene over his silicone. "He was shy with you, too, in the beginning.")

So. Megamind goes to dinner at Rose and Salim's. Minion goes to help Salim in the kitchen when they arrive, and Derya sits in Megamind's lap while he reads to her from a book with thick pages: a story about a caterpillar—oooh, Megamind has never seen a caterpillar! He'll have to see if he can find one in the spring—and he finds that Derya can help to turn pages now with her little fingers. He isn't sure if that's new or not, but he's willing to wait while she grabs at the edges of the book with her sharp little nails and help her separate pages when necessary.

He finishes the story and lowers the book, glancing around at the little row home where Roxanne's—where his? family?—lives. Roxanne and Rose are chatting on the sofa, and Minion and Salim are just visible in the kitchen, laughing as they finish getting dinner ready. And Derya is in his lap, warm and soft and smelling of baby, and Megamind's heart is suddenly so full he can hardly stand it.

He's had a hell of a week—or month—and he still feels water-loose and shaky with adrenaline from the afternoon. But he's really okay, shockingly. And he has so much, so much more now than he ever imagined he would. There's a feeling of expanding warmth in his chest like the fire on the beach with Salim's guitar in his hands and Rose's laughter in his ears and Derya asleep behind him, Roxanne's fireflies like the eyes of the night of his homeworld around him. And he thinks...

Yes. This is love.

Derya wiggles and pushes at his hands in the way he knows means I want to get down, so he presses a kiss to the top of her head and sets her down—briefly—on his bent feet, holding her hands and swinging his legs out so she startles and giggles at the unexpected ride. And then he lets her crawl away to her toy bin to play by herself for a while.

"Megamind," Roxanne says. "Sweetheart? You okay?"

He looks over at her. He knows his smile is very wobbly, but he can't not smile and he can't make it stop wobbling, so he just rolls with it. No one here will laugh at him. "I'm very lucky," he says, heart full and throat tight. "I have—I have a good family."

She smiles and pats the sofa at her hip, and Megamind comes to sit next to her. He leans into her side and loops their arms together, takes her hand. This is another thing he's sure he's never going to get used to or tired of: cuddles. He's come in contact with Roxanne once or twice over the years, but never with the disguise generator off. And this, this skin-to-skin stuff—it's amazing. Best thing in the world. He can't believe he forgot that. He's lucky Roxanne doesn't mind how hungry he is for it.

(He worries that he lies too close at night and sits too close on the sofa. He is so afraid of smothering her. But she keeps insisting she will tell him if she feels that way or she needs him to back off, and Megamind is slowly learning to believe her. Roxanne came home from work seething with rage a couple weeks ago and Megamind went to give her a hug—because that's what you do, isn't it, when your partner is upset—but she snapped, "No don't touch me; I'm angry," and he backed off. He felt hurt, at the time, but honestly it was a relief. Such a relief to know she really will tell him to leave her alone when she needs to be left alone, to know he can reach out without fear that he's imposing without knowing it.)

For now, he settles beside her. Takes her hand. Tips his head back to rest on the back of the sofa. Closes his eyes, and hums when Roxanne brushes her lips over his temple.

Life is good. And Megamind is going to live.